New Testament texts
The cup of the covenant
Luke 22:20-22:
20 And as for the cup after supper, he did the same, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood shed for you.
21 And yet, behold, the hand of him who betrays me is beside me on the table.
22 For the Son of Man is going according to the appointed time. But woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”
The cup of the passion
Matthew 20:17-28
17 Going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the Twelve Disciples aside, and on the way he said to them:
18 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death
19 and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, scourged and crucified; on the third day he will rise again.”
20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons James and John, and bowed down to make a request of him.
21 Jesus said to her, “What do you want?” She replied, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one on your right and one on your left, in your Kingdom.”
22 Jesus replied, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Can you drink the cup I am about to drink?” They say to him, “We can.”
23 He said to them, “My cup you shall drink; as for sitting on my right and on my left, that is not mine to grant; there are those for whom it is prepared by my Father.”
24 The other ten, who had heard, were indignant with the two brothers.
25 Jesus called them together and said, “As you know, the rulers of the nations rule over them, and the great ones make their power felt.
26 But among you it shall not be so: whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant;
27 and whoever wishes to be first among you will be your slave.
28 So the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Luke 22:14-22
14 When the hour had come, Jesus sat down at the table, and the Apostles with him.
15 He said to them, “I have longed to eat this Passover with you before I suffer!
16 For I declare to you: never again will I eat it until it is fully fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 Then, having received a cup and given thanks, he said, “Take this and share among yourselves.
18 For I declare to you: from now on, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God has come.”
19 Then, having taken bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
20 And for the cup, after the meal, he did the same, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood shed for you.
21 And yet, behold, the hand of him who betrays me is beside me on the table.
22 For the Son of Man is going according to the appointed time. But woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”
Luke 22:39-44
39 Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives, as was his custom, and his disciples followed him.
40 When he got there, he said to them, “Pray that you do not enter into temptation.”
41 Then he stepped aside, about a stone’s throw away. Kneeling down, he prayed, saying:
42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”
43 Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, comforting him.
44 Entering agony, Jesus prayed more insistently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
The judgment
Luke 22:23-30
23 The Apostles began to ask one another who among them might be the one to do this.
24 They began to quarrel: which of them, in their opinion, was the greatest?
25 But he said to them: “The kings of the nations rule over them, and those who exercise power over them call themselves benefactors.
26 But not so with you! On the contrary, let the greatest among you become like the youngest, and the ruler like the one who serves.
27 For which is greater: he who sits at table, or he who serves? Isn’t it the one at the table? Well, I am among you as the one who serves.
28 You have stood by me in my trials.
29 And I have the Kingdom for you, just as my Father had it for me.
30 So you will eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
The cup of wrath
Revelation 14:9-13:
09 Another angel, the third, came after them. He said with a loud voice: “If anyone worships the Beast and his image, if he receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand,
10 he too will drink of the wine of God’s fury, poured without mixture into the cup of his wrath; he will be tortured by fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb.
11 And the smoke of these tortures goes up for ever and ever. They have no rest day nor night, those who worship the Beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”
12 Here we recognize the perseverance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
13 Then I heard a voice from heaven. It said: “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, let them rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
The cup
This article follows on from The Tree of Life, for it is from the tree of the cross, from Christ’s pierced side, that the rivers of living water flow, inexhaustible rivers of God’s love and forgiveness. And God offers us his life, the water and blood that flowed from his side in the cup of the covenant.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks to us of a cup, the one he is to drink, and which the apostles will also drink:
Jesus says to them: “You don’t know what you’re asking. Can you drink the cup I’m about to drink, be baptized with the baptism I’m about to be immersed in?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I’m about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism I’m about to be immersed in. (Mark 10, 38-39)
But the cup of which he speaks is the suffering of the passion, the cup that is about to be filled with his own blood, the cup that is filled with the blood of all the martyrs, of all the righteous persecuted, of all the innocent unjustly condemned and killed.
Going a little further, he fell face down in prayer, saying: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me! But not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:39).
Jesus chose to go to the very end of love, to plunge into the water of our humanity, to make himself so much one of us that he will be confused with sinners and criminals. Renouncing the majesty of his divine condition would have exposed him to human ridicule. But it was the only way to prove to them the sincerity and gratuitousness of his love. He was not looking out for his own interests, but for our salvation. This was the baptism into which he was about to be immersed. He agreed to die to save us, to reveal to us the merciful face of the Father in whom we dare not believe, given the extent of our faults. Yet this baptism, which reveals to us the mystery of the Trinity, is the testimony of God’s love paid for with his own life. This same testimony was borne by the apostles, who also paid for solidarity with their brothers and sisters with their own lives. They also went to the very end of their love, and this is the baptism that reveals to the world the mystery of the Trinity. In fact, united with the Son, by accepting the gift of his life and forgiveness, we accept within ourselves the Spirit of love that unites us to the Father in a filial relationship. The same that unites the only-begotten Son to the Father:
May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. May they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:21)
Jesus went to the very end of love and revealed the face of the Father to us, as he did to his disciples.
It is the just man who pays for his love with his own life, but the blood that has been shed becomes at the same time condemnation for the one who shed it. “All those who take up the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52), for unless they repent and accept the forgiveness offered by Jesus to his persecutors, this blood will also decree the spiritual death of the one who shed it, of the one who killed in pursuit of his own happiness with contempt for others. By this act, the wicked man excludes himself from the source of happiness and enters a torment, that of conscience, that of spiritual death, in which he no longer experiences the comfort, the happiness of love for his brothers and sisters, for his neighbor. Hatred takes hold of the heart, love is driven out of it, and the greatest torment of all is to consent to evil. Only God’s forgiveness can heal this mortal wound, recreate the human heart and open it to life again. But we must seek and ask for this forgiveness when we have the time, and not remain locked up in hatred, for then we will have condemned ourselves and will remain in torment. This cup of love then becomes a cup bubbling with anger; the blood of the martyr becomes the torment of the persecutor. He has agreed to drink the cup, to shed his blood; he who drinks it, who pours it out, who kills, is in reality drinking a cup of anger, for this blood will be his torment, his refusal of love will cut him off, deprive him of love of his neighbor, the only source of life. Men will fear him, but with God and his saints, with the Church, recourse, forgiveness is always offered, and he will have to return, repent, convert, that is, turn to this same blood as a source of life, a sign, a proof of love, a love that has been denied, refused, but offered forever. This is my blood, the blood of the Covenant, shed for many” (Mark 14:24).
The text of Revelation tells us that the wine that fills this cup will be trampled underfoot in a winepress outside the city.
The angel then threw the sickle on the earth, harvested the earth’s vines and threw the harvest into the immense vat of God’s fury. They began to tread outside the city, and blood came out of the vat, up to the horses’ bit, for a distance of one thousand six hundred furlongs. (Revelation 14:19-20)
This reminds us of the passion of Christ, who was crucified outside the holy city, outside the walls of Jerusalem. In the same way, every execution, spiritually speaking, takes place outside communion with brothers and sisters, and therefore outside the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. To execute the righteous means to cut oneself off from all fraternal relations, to stand outside the assembly that unites men in friendship and love, it means to be outside the community represented by the holy city, where men are gathered in and by friendship. It’s about the blood and life of all the martyrs, of all the righteous persecuted.
And anyone who eats the Lord’s bread or drinks the Lord’s cup in an unworthy manner will have to answer for the Lord’s body and blood. We must therefore examine ourselves before eating of this bread and drinking from this cup. He who eats and drinks eats and drinks his own judgment if he does not discern the body of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:27-29)
The blood of Jesus is shed, his body is offered as a sacrifice, and with it the members of his body are also associated with his passion, the persecuted righteous. As St. Ignatius of Antioch said, approaching the moment of his martyrdom:
Let me be the food of the beasts, through which it will be possible for me to find God. I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of beasts, to be found a pure bread of Christ (Letter to the Romans).
Those who drink the blood of the martyrs are their persecutors, for whom the cup of blessing is transformed into condemnation, for it is an opportunity for them to cut themselves off from the body of Christ, from the vital link with God in love of neighbor.
Césaire d’Arles in his homilies on the Apocalypse (homily 17) also says that “God treads the winepress of wrath when he allows the wicked to do evil and abandons them to their voluptuousness.” Here again, as he had already done in homily 12 about the seven vials, he reaffirms the idea that the wicked condemn themselves. When God allows men and the devil to go to extremes in persecuting the righteous, he allows evil to reveal itself, and thus the righteous to overcome it publicly, for he who dies following Jesus’ example reveals God’s merciful face, and he who does not welcome God’s gift of love and forgiveness, which is thus visibly manifested to men, makes himself even more guilty, persists in evil and cuts himself off from communion with good, communion with God’s Spirit in love of neighbor. This is the paradoxical expression of the Bible that we find in the episode of Pharaoh, whose heart God allows to harden as he continues to oppress and persecute the Hebrew people. This is not to say that God pushes man to commit evil, but that when he himself endures persecution in Jesus Christ or in his creatures, he leaves man free to follow his evil inspirations, to pursue his evil designs. On the contrary, as in the example of Pharaoh or Jesus himself, it is only after having done everything possible to call the wicked to justice and having offered him the opportunity to convert, that finally, after having tried everything, he cannot force man against his will and allows him to pursue his evil designs. This is how Jesus allowed Judas to betray him, after having once again called him to communion, to friendship, to the sharing of the covenant meal. In the same way, after addressing his people in Jerusalem and inviting them to live out their love of God and of their neighbor, after having tried everything, the devil was left free to go all the way. And Jesus went right to the end of his love by offering his own life, like a mute lamb, without opening his mouth or cursing his enemies, but persevering in his invitation to love. And it was then that his persecutors drank the wine of God’s wrath, that is to say, the wine, which is the symbol of blood, of the life given by God, instead of being welcomed in thanksgiving by men, becomes instead the occasion of their separation from God and communion with their brothers. The cup of blessing, which is a sign of covenant, of sharing between the guests invited to the same table to share the meal, becomes the occasion for a refusal of communion. And in so doing, he who refuses the offer of communion, of covenant, cuts himself off from the only source of life and joy, which is nourished by love of neighbor, by fraternal ties. And the cup of blessing becomes the cup of wrath, for he who refuses it drinks the bitterness of his separation from the other members of the body. The head of this body is Christ, and the life he has offered to all humanity is the vital breath that engenders every being: not to welcome life as a gift from God means separating oneself, not only from the head of the body, but also from all the members who are animated by the same vital breath, it means separating oneself from one’s own brothers and sisters by pursuing the illusion of a possible happiness in selfishness, in the appropriation of life for oneself, to the detriment of others. If fraternal ties and filial trust are severed, then the source of life and joy is cut off, life dries up, the verdant plain is transformed into a barren desert. The isolated soul suffers from the thirst for happiness, and cannot find its happiness elsewhere, in mirages.
He said to them all: “Whoever wishes to follow me, let him renounce himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What advantage will it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he loses or ruins himself? (Luke 9, 23-25)
In some ancient Greek commentaries on Revelation, it is even said that God’s wrath indicates the devil himself, who is left free to go to his ruin, dragging along men who have freely and voluntarily devoted themselves to him, deaf to God’s many calls to return to him. As the commentary attributed to Origen attests, man is handed over to the wrath of God, i.e. to the devil, in the hope that by going to the very end of his evil, he will realize the suffering it entails and thus, at last, be converted. This is how Jesus, delivered into the hands of his enemies, inspired and led by the devil, as in the case of Judas (), once crucified, will reveal the injustice, make it visible, and it’s at this point that those who were determined against him will finally open up to regret, to understanding their error, as in the case of the murderer crucified next to Jesus, who exclaims: “For us, it’s fair: after what we’ve done, we get what we deserve. But he did nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41). In the same way, the centurion who presided over the crucifixion, seeing Jesus dying, understood: “Seeing what had happened, the centurion gave glory to God: ‘This was truly a righteous man'” (Luke 23:47).
Tyconius, Commentaire de l’Apocalypse, Introduction, traduction et notes par Roger Gryson, Brépols, 2011, p.203-204, n.19-20 :
“And I saw thrones, and those who sat on them, and power to judge was given to them. I also saw the souls of those who had been put to death for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God. And as many as did not worship the beast or his image and did not receive his mark on their foreheads or hands, lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Rev 20:4). The Church which, in Christ, will sit on twelve thrones to judge, is already sitting and judging, as it is written: “Already the saints are judging the world” (1 Corinthians 6:2). And the Lord, when he promised this power to his own, expressed himself thus: “You who have followed me, in the renewed generation, when the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, you too will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). Now, the Son of Man already sits on his throne of glory, since he has been glorified in the Lord. The whole renewed generation of saints is joined to his body, and sits at the right hand of Power, judging through his head. It is of the present, not of the future, that the Lord has spoken; he has not said, in fact, “you will sit and judge”, but “you will sit and judge”. Moreover, if he had seen these thrones at the time of the Last Judgment, he would not be talking about souls, for at that time they will be reunited with their bodies. Now, on the contrary, he says he has seen “people sitting on thrones”, and he also speaks of the souls of those who have been put to death, to designate both the living and the dead. All these, he says, ‘lived and reigned with Christ’ for a thousand years. He spoke rightly of all of them, both those who are still alive and those who have died. He said ‘they have reigned’ as if it were done, in the same way as “they have divided my garments among them” (Psalm 21:19); for he was going to say further on “they will reign”.
To make it clear what these thousand years are, he added: “This is the first resurrection”, obviously the one that brings us back to life through baptism, as the apostle says: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:2), and again: “As the living who have come back from the dead” (Romans 6:13). Sin, in fact, is death, as the same apostle says: “While you were dead because of your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Just as there is a first death in the present life, because of sins, so there is also a first resurrection in the present life, thanks to the forgiveness of sins.
L’Apocalypse expliquée par Césaire d’Arles, Les Pères dans la foi, DDB, 1989, Paris, Scholie 14 attribuée à Origène, p.191-192 :
When John goes to say great is the wrath of God (Rev 6:I7), he does not call the misfortunes that have happened wrath of God: they are external to God, who only sends them, when necessary, to those who need them and are delivered to them. For these men are unworthy of God and, once in the power of evil, they thus regret the God they have despised. And God’s wrath is the devil.
We read in the second book of Kings: “[The devil further inflamed the wrath of God against the Israelites and stirred up David and said, ‘Go and number Israel and Judah'” (2 Samuel 24:1). It was God’s anger that aroused David, but there is no “she said” but “he said”. So, alongside God in person who, according to Scripture, has often spoken to his saints, there is on the other hand a wrath of God that speaks in this way and orders a fault to be committed to which divine punishment attaches for whoever has been persuaded by the words of this wrath. And how could the wrath that chastises for faults, and does so justly, chastise in all justice the one it has persuaded to sin? It is unjustly that the principle of sin chastises the one who has sinned. But, as I have already said, the wrath of God is the devil, who persuades to commit sin, with the will to take under his domination the one who has committed it because he has committed it. The first book of Chronicles reports the same accusation against David: “The devil rose up against the Israelites, and induced David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). Both the second book of Kings and the first book of Chronicles use the verb “incited”, the book of Kings in reference to the Lord’s wrath, the book of Chronicles in reference to the devil’s wrath. If the verb “incita” designates the cause of the fault, and if it is the devil who is the cause of the fault, it is he who is named in both cases either by the common term “devil”, or by that which is unknown to the many, i.e. “wrath of the Lord”: it is said in the great Song [of Exodus] and in other passages: “You sent your wrath, it devoured him like stubble”, etc. (Exodus 15:7). Everything that is sent by someone differs from the one who sends it. Who then would be the wrath sent against the Egyptians, if not the devil, as we learned from the first book of Chronicles? If we say that sinners are delivered to the wrath of God, we must understand that they are delivered to the devil, as Paul did with the Corinthian and the men he “delivered to Satan so that they might learn not to blaspheme” (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20).
For further information, see the article God’s wrath.